it’s a very cool thing indeed that you can use in a studio or improv session and you can get unexpected results by using any audio source and not just single cycle waves, but the thing is that it’s dependent on routing, so for people who for example use multiple kits/patterns they would have to make this routing consistent and permanent both for using same individual outs and removing the voices from main outs, this is not replacing a second lfo you can save with the kit/pattern and when you turn the machine on it just works without the extra routing steps.
also, if you do use different audio waveforms you’d need to go into the CV menu every time to re-learn the audio, making it a bit useless for a live set unless you use the same audio source.
but for experimentation/studio recording this feature is very unique, the best thing is it’s a macro lfo with up to 4 destination across all voices and fx, very cool.
also people with DAW and dc coupled audio interfaces can use CV tools and internal lfos to get even better lfos, or even use something like VCV Rack to generate lfos, this way you don’t have to sacrifice voices.
Your totally right, it’s certainly not an extra LFO per voice that’s for sure, although it can create very different sounds and possibilities that the typical LFO offering can’t, which opens up some options and uniqueness to the Rytm to some degree, but of course it’s always depending on what the need is. It simply might not cut it.
For me personally, limitations are great, even if that can be frustrating. I think for me also, trying to find a way to do one thing in something else, can be a rewarding way to unlock a machine a little more, to connect with it. Finding your own way with it. And sometimes it just doesn’t do it, and you have to use something else, and carry those discoveries over to the new device.
Ive been thinking seriously in using Ableton again for live use, having left it to use the Rytm for that job. It’s a surprise to me, and yet to test it.
The constant back and forth that comes from limited gear, development and need.
you need to set SETUP > MIDI > PORT CONFIG > ENCODER DEST to INT+ EXT and then have your Live settings to receive midi from the rytm and then midi map to bind stuff
Something i was playing around with yesterday is assigning different LFO destinations per step, which helps get around the single LFO per track limit. I don’t think I’ve ever done this before now on the Rytm and first stumbled upon it while using the Model:Cycles.
If you’re using a single track for multiple sounds then this works quite well. It’s not obviously multiple LFO’s stacked in one track but multiples LFO’s within a single track.
Worth playing about with if you haven’t already, and although not a feature request, it might help in some situations and be quicker and more interesting than waiting for an LFO update, clicking refresh on Elektron website
I’ve played a lot with plocks on lfos params, it’s very cool but the thing is that once you start building a nice pattern with more then one track and start plocking a lot you run very quickly into the limit of plocks.
one of the feature requests somewhere here is adding more plocks because the limit hits very quickly.
in the meantime for cool modulation you can use slides, you still need to plock stuff but it can reduce plocks on lfos, they are more static modulations then lfos but with slides you can create “macro” modulation, morphing more then one param for a slide.
“the ability to paste a pattern onto a different pattern than the one that´s currently playing and edit that pattern.”
This is definitely something that makes sense for people that perform and improvise live. Would allow to create a pattern, and then build variations that can be chained together.
For example a possible workflow:
create a pattern on A1.
copy/paste the pattern on A2
change the kit on A2 while pattern A1 is still playing
create a chain using those patterns, for example A1 A1 A1 A2
Think about working with 64 steps, for example. you have the page button that allows to edit a specific page while another one is currently playing (and playing cycles through the pages). If you didn’t have the page button, you would have to edit that page just when it’s playing, which is totally impractical. This is exactly the situation now with chains, you can’t edit a pattern while the chain is in another point, which for an improvised set doesn’t really work.
I would propose, both in and out chain mode:
[new chain] + [play] = legacy mode, pattern played and edited are the same.
[new chain] + [stop] = pattern edit mode. Selecting a pattern doesn’t change the pattern playing, but only the pattern displayed. On screen the pattern edited is displayed. The controls [encoders, buttons] change the pattern edited. An icon is displayed on top right screen.
[new chain] + [page] = cycling the edited pattern through the pattern on the chain, left to right, playback is unaffected.
Ability to use randomisation with scenes and performances. I tried and I couldn’t make it work.
Actually the whole process of building the scenes or perfomances is not improvisation/live friendly. Would be much better if could find the differences of the values with the original kit and store it on a scene/performance. a bit like the temp save function of the model:Samples, but with 12 slots instead of 1.
An alternative implementation of scene mode, would be as shortcut to save a kit, for example in scene mode if ‘kit 1’ is used, [func] + [pad 1] saves the current kit with current modifications as ‘kit 1 - sc 1’, while [pad 1] toggles between kits ‘kit 1’ and ‘kit 1 - sc 1’.
Obviously in this case you would have only 9 kits for project and the other slots would be used for this functionality. But i think 9 kits makes sense with the limitation of 127 samples anyway.
better copy and paste of kits/patterns etc would be useful, though I imagine tricky when it comes to sample slots, though I’m trying to shift away from sample use…
Feature request: alternative step for conditional triggers.
[Trigger]+[fill] toggles between normal mode and alternative step editing mode. Keeping pressed the [trigger] change the values for parameters on screen as if p-locking normally.
An alternative step is a step that is played when the trigger condition evaluates to false and takes the place of the usual silence. For example in a 1:4 condition the first time the main step is played, the next three the alternative step is played. If any of the parameters of the alternative step are modified then the alternative step is active, if all the plocks of the alternative step are cleared, the alternative step is inactive and silence is used (legacy mode). When the alternative step is active, an icon is displayed on screen while pressing the trigger. If alternative step editing mode is toggled on with [trigger]+[fill], the bottom of the display shows plock indication similar to plock on scenes/perf, with the possibility to clear the plocks and so effectively cancelling the alternative step and revert to silence.
Key tracking modulation or an alternative chromatic mode that gives you velocity steps so the pads can be used to trigger different parts of a sample chain (via sample slot mod) or different modulation settings. Would make the pads very useful for all sorts of things.
I just saw a video about the octatrack this morning, but I don’t have it and I don’t know exactly what it can do in details. The video I saw was about live resampling. I think also loopers were proposed as an alternative solution. I suppose that it would mean “freezing” the audio currently playing so to capture the current pattern, switch the main audio out to the frozen pattern, switch to a blank pattern on AR, create a new pattern, then switch back the main audio out to the AR. Quite cumbersome, imo.
Anyway this solution would not really work in the scenario of chain mode. If you are in chain mode it’s impossible to edit a pattern in the chain without having it switching to the following by the playback.
It’s the analogous of having 64 steps without the page button to select the page to edit. Imagine if the page button was not present and you had to hope to be quick enough to make your change in the time window when the page is playing and visible, that is totally impractical. Currently, the same situation is with chain mode, they are not really usable live cause it’s difficult then to edit the single pattern.
It’s a shame cause AR has this intelligent design of having a kit in common with more patterns.
I tried to make a chain (of 2 patterns) with the model::sample, and then record live a synth using its fantastic oscillators and the 1-16 steps as chromatic pads (here the use of 1-16 steps as chromatic keys is superior to AR cause it gives more range). All good, but then when I started to play with the filter, only one pattern was modified (because the kit is relative to the pattern, 1 kit every pattern). So you have again a freeze situation, where you can’t coherently change the sound once the chain is made.
Instead with AR, despite the kit independent of pattern design is often criticized, this design works perfectly with chain mode, so different patterns can share the kit and you can morph sounds between multiple patterns. But then you can’t edit the pattern comfortably, which sucks.
